Can you explain why you think it is "tasteless and clueless uber-liberal hate-filled propaganda"? Otherwise, some readers may think that your response is just kneejerk and clueless uber-conservative hate-filled propaganda.

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." --President Bush, on "Good Morning America," Sept. 1, 2005, six days after repeated warnings from experts about the scope of damage expected from Hurricane Katrina

"What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) -- this is working very well for them." --Former First Lady Barbara Bush, on the Hurricane flood evacuees in the Houston Astrodome, Sept. 5, 2005

"Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well." --FEMA Director Michael Brown, Sept. 1, 2005

"What didn't go right?'" --President Bush, as quoted by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), after she urged him to fire FEMA Director Michael Brown "because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right" in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort

"Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?" --House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX), to three young hurricane evacuees from New Orleans at the Astrodome in Houston

"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did." --Rep. Richard Baker (R-LA) to lobbyists, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal

Now, comparing and contrasting: is a photoshopped picture more or less "hate-filled" propaganda than the above?

It might be clever on the 10th of September, it might be clever on the 12th- but it ain't clever today.

And it didn't come out today. It's been bouncing around the web for a while and has been on Snopes for at least the last couple of days.

And Aasem, yes, all satire is "clue-less hatefilled...propaganda." Relax dude. If Bush can make jokes at public events (like, I believe, the National Press Club Dinner) about not finding any WMDs, a little satire about his slow reaction to this massive tragedy and his praise of the some of the people who screwed up the most is hardly propaganda.

Correction: Sorry, I meant "clueless" instead of "hate-filled". Mental misfire. I don't believe the Bush family, Delay, Brown, et al actually hate people. I do think the quotes support the thesis that they suffer from a complete lack of clue.

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." --President Bush, on "Good Morning America," Sept. 1, 2005, six days after repeated warnings from experts about the scope of damage expected from Hurricane Katrina

You are a liar, =0=.

From the NYTimes:

Government Saw Flood Risk but Not Levee Failure
By SCOTT SHANE and ERIC LIPTON
New York Times
"Army Corps personnel, in charge of maintaining the levees in New Orleans, started to secure the locks, floodgates and other equipment, said Greg Breerwood, deputy district engineer for project management at the Army Corps of Engineers.

"We knew if it was going to be a Category 5, some levees and some flood walls would be overtopped," he said. "We never did think they would actually be breached."

So Bush was exactly right - the people in charge of the levee - the Army Corps, did NOT think the levee would be breached. Under many circumstances, I'd give you the benefit of the doubt and say it was a mistake; but it is just so typical for liberals to lie like this that I just can't give them the benefit of the doubt any more.

"What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) -- this is working very well for them." --Former First Lady Barbara Bush, on the Hurricane flood evacuees in the Houston Astrodome, Sept. 5, 2005

Oh, also, this IS correct, at least for some of the refugees evacuees. Here is the evidence:

Putting Down New Roots on More Solid Ground
By SUSAN SAULNY
Published: September 7, 2005

HOUSTON, Sept. 6 - In her 19 years, all spent living in downtown New Orleans, Chavon Allen had never ventured farther than her bus fare would allow, and that was one trip last year to Baton Rouge. But now that she has seen Houston, she is planning to stay.

"This is a whole new beginning, a whole new start. I mean, why pass up a good opportunity, to go back to something that you know has problems?" asked Ms. Allen, who had been earning $5.15 an hour serving chicken in a Popeyes restaurant."

Government Saw Flood Risk but Not Levee Failure
By SCOTT SHANE and ERIC LIPTON
New York Times
"Army Corps personnel, in charge of maintaining the levees in New Orleans, started to secure the locks, floodgates and other equipment, said Greg Breerwood, deputy district engineer for project management at the Army Corps of Engineers.

"We knew if it was going to be a Category 5, some levees and some flood walls would be overtopped," he said. "We never did think they would actually be breached."

Before you call someone a liar, figure out what he's saying. You quote some ACE guy, *after* the President's remark, for the notion that no one thought the levee would be breached.

First, that doesn't make it true that "no one" anticipated a breach.

Second, a breach was obviously to be anticipated by anyone who paid attention. I went to grad school at Tulane for a year (in philosophy, not meteorology), and it was common knowledge that the levees might break in a bad enough storm. In 1927, the levees broke &flooded the Miss. Delta. "When the levee breaks, Mama you got to go." Levees do break under sufficient stress.

Third, the issue of a breach is a red herring. Either a breach or overtopping could flood the city.

An overtopping wouldn't be nearly as bad as a breach. With overtopping, a pumpout could begin immediately. Outside of an 80 foot tsunami, any overtopped water would be pumped out almost immediately.

It's the difference between some water going over a dam and the dam breaking. George Bush's comments were accurate.

The state of Louisiana, not the federal government, bears the majority of the blame here. Blanco and Nagin are incompetent boobs. New Orleans is learning what happens when you elect idiot Democrats to office. C.f. Rudy Guiliani.

A.S. - my goodness, the assumptions do seem to fly. In order of increasing importance:

- I wish I were a "limosine liberal". Hey, then I'd have a limosine, and that would likely beat the reality of being a small-business libertarian.

- The Barbera Bush quote was not added to the list in an attempt to argue as to whether or not being flushed from your home and city is an opportunity to end up in a better or worse position. It might even be the case that losing everything you have and being driven to a different city might work out for some people. Hope springs eternal. The point was to highlight a, shall we say, slight disconnect from the realities on the ground that wealth and priviledge affords some people. I find it a little disheartening that I even need to point this out.

- I would like to ask you to retract your accusation of lying. Everything I say is in good faith; I may absolutely be incorrect, and welcome correction. My entire thesis may be wrong; I've changed my mind more than once in the past. I may be wrong, dumb, or off-base, but I do not lie, and ascribing motives to me that I don't possess will lead me to ignore you in the future, absent correction.

- In any case, I find your linked evidence more than a little weak. I would cite the fact that such phrases as "when the levee breaks" are in popular song titles to suggest the obvious: everyone knows it could happen. If there was no planning, then that suggests an even worse level of incompetence. But if I need to play tit-for-tat link games, why did nobody listen to an expert?

"We pretty much knew this would happen somewhere along the line," Gregory W. Stone, director of the Coastal Studies Institute at Louisiana State University, said Thursday. He is among the scientists who have issued dire warnings for years.

- Allow me to suggest what Eugene, Orin, and others have repeatedly stresed: "avoid rants, invective, and substantial and repeated exaggeration". It doesn't do any good, except perhaps for blood pressure medication peddlers.

The state of Louisiana, not the federal government, bears the majority of the blame here. Blanco and Nagin are incompetent boobs. New Orleans is learning what happens when you elect idiot Democrats to office. C.f. Rudy Guiliani.

As someone who was right here in NYC four years ago, I take issue with that.

Guiliani was great at looking impressive. I don't blame him for the attacks, obviously. And while I think it was dumb to put an emergency response command center where it was, I won't blame him much for that either. But all he did was not pee himself on camera. The real response was from locals who did their jobs, or just went in to help. We're a tough city, but we help each other when it is needed. Pretending that it was all Rudi offends me, because I was here to see what happened. (I live near the Brooklyn Bridge, and bought out the bottled water at a local store to give to people straggling over. A small thing, to be certain. All I could do.)

And let's not forget that, had nobody paid attention, Bernie Kerik would be in the hot seat now. Need I say more?

If you want a good PR guy and more corruption, by all means, promote Rudi.

Has it occurred to you that perhaps looking impressive is an important thing for a leader to do in a crisis situation? Remember Churchill? Guiliani provided real leadership by not getting flustered, maintaining control over his first responders, and smartly controlling the situation on the ground.

The Louisiana response, by contrast, has involved numerous public officials crying on camera, screaming, and generally being disorganized nincompoops. It's no surprise that the state and local first responders have performed so badly with that sort of leadership at the top.

Blanco's negligent refusal to let the feds take over, Nagin's complete failure to follow the written evacuation/disaster plan, and the apparent utter lack of any sort of disaster preparedness by the state of Louisiana at all levels have caused the vast majority of the problems here.

Anyway, the fact that Nagin can't seem to utter a sentence without using some sort of inner-city slang is prima facie evidence that he's an idiot.

Jeremy: An overtopping wouldn't be nearly as bad as a breach. With overtopping, a pumpout could begin immediately. Outside of an 80 foot tsunami, any overtopped water would be pumped out almost immediately.

We have been reading different versions of the facts; perhaps you're right. But my understanding was that the Pam exercise contemplated (1) overtopped levees and (2) serious flooding.

General note: You've gotta love a topic where a Led Zep song title becomes a citation to authority. (Though they didn't write the song.)

Rudi was far from perfect, but corrupt? That's one thing he's never been even accused of before.

I don't want to appear rude, but do you live here? Did you when he was "cleaning up" the mob by giving contracts and building permits to, ahem, "favored stakeholders and community members"? (I think that was the phrase.) If so, and you think that was more than a PR exercise, I would invite you to talk with the folks living in the (illegal) lofts over the mob controlled favored stakeholder owned garbage collectors in Dumbo or Red Hook. If nobody's watching, they might mention odd late-night conferences involving notables and occasional odd smells. That's the way this has always worked, and still does.

And I did actually type "Bernie Kerik", an NYC cliche for corrupt government and cronyism, in the sentence directly before that, right?

(I'm not kidding - one Ibanker I know asked me to "bernie him in" to a party some friends of mine were throwing.)

Has it occurred to you that perhaps looking impressive is an important thing for a leader to do in a crisis situation? Remember Churchill? Guiliani provided real leadership by not getting flustered, maintaining control over his first responders, and smartly controlling the situation on the ground.

I agree that strong leadership is a powerful thing. I'm suggesting, however, that Rudi got a lot of credit for unorganized response. Indeed - there were isolated cases of offical response stopping people from helping, much like we see in New Orleans now, but on a much wider scale. I don't dislike him, but I find the awe that non-NYC Republicans seem to find for him strange. But then, I also believe that executive functions should require more than PR skills - operations matter.

The Louisiana response, by contrast, has involved numerous public officials crying on camera, screaming, and generally being disorganized nincompoops. It's no surprise that the state and local first responders have performed so badly with that sort of leadership at the top.

Let's replay the script here. Locals could have responded better, FEMA could have responsed better, maybe dumb people said dumb things, whatever, we learned from it, and the system worked, right? And anyway vacations, guitars, wars of choice and the phrase "Brownie" will never, ever enter in to public political discourse.

Are we done now?

Anyway, the fact that Nagin can't seem to utter a sentence without using some sort of inner-city slang is prima facie evidence that he's an idiot.

It would be a terrible thing, indeed, if a local leader talked to his peasants as if he were one of them.

I'm surprised this blog linked to it, but it's meaning does not stray far from what we are hearing from prominent voices, e.g. Nancy Pilosi, Howard Dean, Harry Reid, and Congressional Black Caucus, to name a few.

I was reading this thread with bemused detachment until I came across this jewel:
Anyway, the fact that Nagin can't seem to utter a sentence without using some sort of inner-city slang is prima facie evidence that he's an idiot.This is outrageously offensive and borderline racist. First, as =0= noted above, he's merely parroting how many of his constituents talk. Second, whether or not an elected official (or anyone, for that matter) uses the Queen's English doesn't tell us anything about their intelligence or capabilities.

At least, I hope it doesn't, or else I fear for us all, with "nukular" weapons in the hands of the guy running this country.

Prof. Kerr, I agree. The picture is pretty clever. And the photoshopping isn't bad either. The seams in the cut/paste job are practically nonexistent, and whoever did it matched up the lighting pretty well.

Do you really believe that an inability to use proper English has nothing to do with a native English speaker's "intelligence or capabilities"? Further, do you really think that the proposition is "outrageously offensive and borderline racist"? Do you believe the SAT, ACT, LSAT, and GRE are offensive and racist for testing language skills? Do you believe elementary schools, high schools, and colleges are offensive and racist for testing students on proper grammar?

When I've hired employees in the past, I certainly take note when interviewees make egregious grammatical errors in the job interviews. Am I therefore racist?

You suggest that Mayor Nagin parrots his constituents as an electoral strategy; you might be right. But what does it say about New Orleans voters if the proper use of English hurts mayoral candidates?

Second, a breach was obviously to be anticipated by anyone who paid attention.

Simply false. The federal government EXPERTS who are IN CHARGE of the levees "never did think" would be breached. I don't know what is so difficult about reading for comprehension, but if the federal government's EXPERTS IN CHARGE OF THE LEVEE said that they didn't think the levee would be breached, it is ENTIRELY CORRECT for Bush to say that the federal government didn't think the levee would be breached.

Third, the issue of a breach is a red herring. Either a breach or overtopping could flood the city.

As pointed out above, a breach is MUCH worse than overtopping. Both could flood the city. But flooding from a breach is much worse.

The point was to highlight a, shall we say, slight disconnect from the realities on the ground that wealth and priviledge affords some people.

And the quote I cited was to highlight that Bush was NOT "disconnect[ed] from the realities on the gound" - in fact, she was exactly correct. She said it was "working out well, and at least the one lady quoted said the it was a "good opportunity". It seems to me, given the cited evidence, that it was YOU who is disconnected to the realities on the ground, not her. I find it a little disheartening that I even need to point this out.

I would like to ask you to retract your accusation of lying.

As I posted above, in normal circumstances, I would give you the benefit of the doubt. But the left has been lying since day 1 of this disaster, and I'm plum out of giving people the benefit of the doubt. If you want to prove your good faith, admit you were wrong about Bush's quote about the levee breach and Barbara Bush's statement.

In any case, I find your linked evidence more than a little weak. I would cite the fact that such phrases as "when the levee breaks" are in popular song titles to suggest the obvious: everyone knows it could happen.

Citing Led Zeppelin does not show that the federal government actually anticipated that the levees would breach. As I posted above, I'm not sure what is up with reading comprehension these days: the Army Corps of Engineers - the people actually in charge of the levees, DID NOT EXPECT THEM TO BREACH. What is so difficult about that to understand? Bush wa entirely right, no matter what Led Zeppelin sang.

Allow me to suggest what Eugene, Orin, and others have repeatedly stresed: "avoid rants, invective, and substantial and repeated exaggeration".

Let me suggest that providing TWO FACTS is not a "rant", "invective", or "substantial and repeated exaggeration". It is the provision of two facts. That the two facts refute your points does not make them otherwise.

Jeremy-
There are infinite varieties of speech. People speak the way they do for many complex reasons. The variety of Enlgish that you are disparaging is known by linguists (i.e. people who study this in a rigorous, scientific manner) as Black English or African American Vernacular English and is just as rule-governed and systematic as Standard American English or British English, or Latin, or Malayalam, or you get the idea. Language isn't something that is "taught" in classes; you learn it during early childhood (especially from peers) and it gets pretty well cemented around puberty. A popular text is Steven Pinker's Language Instinct; more detailed (and more theoretically balanced) information can be found in any introductory linguistics text. The subfield of socio-linguistics is especially relevant.

This is not an uncommon misperception. I see (as does every other linguist) a pervasive mythology about non-standard dialects as being "wrong", "lazy", "vulgar" etc. This needs to be corrected.

True, unfortunately. What is taught in classes (esp. elementary school) are reading and writing. Along with that are some arbitrary "rules" like "don't end sentences in prepositions" (although just about every other Germanic language allows this) and "don't split infinitives" (look up why we're not supposed to do that, it's pretty hilarious.) Other "rules" such as "double negatives are illogical" are tied deeply into dialect usage, which is tied into social factors, which is tied into class, race, gender, etc. Anyone who has learned Spanish, French, Russian, etc. or read Shakespeare, Chaucer, or any English pre-1700s has seen double negatives used. Do any of you say 'dived' as the past tense of 'dive'? Or do you use 'dove'? Which is older? Of course it's the less standard and more stigmatized 'dived'. Our opinions about language are based in social bias, not fact or reason. Linguists seek to understand how we use language, how it works, etc. Hopefully this research will educate everyone, not just academics.

Perhaps we should start with the obvious fact that what is depicted does not reflect reality. Then examine the unambiguous message. Knee jerk? Of course not. Just injecting common sense in response to a false and inflamatory and defamatory and juvenile image.

I think you all will learn how premature most of your posts are in the next couple months. From what I've read, most of you haven't followed this disaster, except perhaps through the filters of CNN or the DU. I really thought most followers of this site were a little more objective and fact oriented. Sadly, I am apparently wrong. Is this the bar we must look forward to?

You might want to familiarize yourself with the timeline of this disaster, and perhaps learn something about the first two days. You might also want to peruse the Constitution and consider things like Federalism. Try to be objective for a moment. Perhaps compare the fed's response to comparable events in history--and don't be shy about examining Democratic administrations.

Come on, dude, be real. Don't be a moronic shill for the propaganda-based contingent.

Nagin and Blanco screwed up big time by not using busses to evacuate before landfall. But guess what? They lucked out! By and large, the city survived extremely well-until the end of day 2, when the levee broke. Although flooding was predictible before landfall, the democrats charged with first response failed to save their consituents, but lucked out. Thereafter, the boken levee was no longer predictible. But it eventually broke to the surprise of all, including Nagin, Blanco and the Bush administration--2 days after landfall. We need to take some time to sort that out.

What was predictable before didn't happen. Then after two days and the weather was clear and the storm long gone, it happened. Meanwhile, Blanco refused to let Bush do what everyone seems to blame him for not doing. And she still hasn't let in the Red Cross. Be careful where you point your fingers.

As a strong Bush supporter, I cracked a smile when someone emailed that picture to me on Friday and I forwarded it on to the usual suspects. As political satire, photoshop doesn't get much better than that.

That being said, those who want to blame this disaster on Bush are showing their true colors. The State of Louisiana barred relief agencies from bringing food and water to people at the Superdome. This resulted in the news images of desperate people being left to suffer by the government.

I also have little doubt that a large number of the evacuees will relocate to Houston, where they will reap the benefits of honest government.

Not sure what you mean by "benefits of honest government." I guess you mean relative to New Orleans. Houston does have a well-managed infrastructure (despite what you've heard) and one of the best mayors we've had in a while. And both city and state have been generous and responsive to vicims of Katrina. As for honest, well, I'm fairly careful before ascribing the attributes of this word to anyone in Government. Its very nature is graft and corruption, but if it manages competence and good management in the process, I don't mind. The tension between efficiency and graft are ever present. A good mix of the two is about the best we can hope for. And I guess Houston's got that.

What NO residents who have been displaced will find in Houston is an abundance of nice people who are willing to help. Indeed, there's been a lot of that already.

I don't want to appear rude, but do you live here? Did you when he was "cleaning up" the mob by giving contracts and building permits to, ahem, "favored stakeholders and community members"? (I think that was the phrase.) If so, and you think that was more than a PR exercise, I would invite you to talk with the folks living in the (illegal) lofts over the mob controlled favored stakeholder owned garbage collectors in Dumbo or Red Hook. If nobody's watching, they might mention odd late-night conferences involving notables and occasional odd smells. That's the way this has always worked, and still does.

And I did actually type "Bernie Kerik", an NYC cliche for corrupt government and cronyism, in the sentence directly before that, right?

(I'm not kidding - one Ibanker I know asked me to "bernie him in" to a party some friends of mine were throwing.)

I've been living in New York for quite a long time, thank you very much, and I've never heard of any of what you're talking about. You are, I think, combining snippets of New York lore you've heard at cocktail parties in your head.

The New York garbage business, for example, while notoriously corrupt for decades, was cleaned up in the 80s and 90s by, among others, Rudy Guliani.

By the way - the term "ibanker" went out '01, and in years of socializing in Manhattan, I've never heard the term "a bernie."

You are, I think, just making stuff up in order to libel someone whose politics you disagree with.

Folks generally, A.S. in particular: No matter how much you might disagree with people, on this site you must be polite to them. That means not calling them liars, even if you think you have solid evidence that they're mistaken. First, one can be mistaken and not be a liar, if the mistake is a sincere one. Second, throwing around these sorts of allegations in any event makes the conversation unpleasant for other listeners.

If people continue to violate this rule, they will be blocked from posting.